


Field of View

by Kenjiandco



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Android Gore (Detroit: Become Human), Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Clothed Sex, Dom/sub Undertones, First Time, Frottage, Hankcon Valentines Exchange, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mild Gore, RK1700 - Freeform, Resolved Sexual Tension, Wall Sex, slightly possessive Nines, thirium pump hand jobs, wireplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-13 17:45:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kenjiandco/pseuds/Kenjiandco
Summary: “I have watched you, every moment since I was awakened,” Nines whispers. He reaches out, red and blue blood mingled and drying on the fingertips he places under Connor’s chin, and Connor doesn’t know why he lets his head fall back at the slightest pressure, baring his throat to Nines’ feral gaze. “Trying to understand you. My predecessor. My prototype.” His thumb brushes Connor’s jawline, against the bare plastic in a rough spot where his skin won’t reform, and the touch sends a deep, hot shock through Connor’s battered frame.“Everything I am is an improvement on you.” A tiny press, and Connor lets his head tip to the side. “All your parameters, all your abilities, meant to be perfected in me. And yet you consistently, continually react in ways I cannot understand.” Annoyance, anger, frustration, all the things he should be feeling are bubbling through the back of Connor’s mind, somewhere distant: he can’t think past Nines’ fingers on his exposed chassis, grazing against the damaged seams and loose wires in the soft spot where his jaw hinges.(Information goes bad. A stakeout goes wrong. People get hurt. Androids get hurt. And Nines and Connor stumble into something new)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_drift](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_drift/gifts).



> This fic is for the_drift, for the Hankcon Valentines Day exchange! And it will be posted in two parts because life and my car exploded this week. Forgive me for the split post - I hope you enjoy!

There’s a countdown in the corner of Connor’s vision, flickering red as the numbers reach zero and begin to crawl into the negatives. He shifts position, a tiny movement carefully calculated to crack the accumulation of ice off his joints, and the counter flickers green and resets. Connor resettles himself flat on the roof of the shipping container, absolutely motionless until the freezing rain pounding down requires him to dislodge the ice again. 

The narrow alleys below him are pitch black - just unlit channels barely wide enough for a forklift to drive down, towering walls of stacked shipping containers visible only in the fine golden lines sketched out by his tactical overlay. The neat grid crumples in a few places, lines bunched up around an accumulation of garbage.  The rats nosing through it are little bright points of thermal heat amongst the refuse. 

Even with his overlay dialed in, Connor has to concentrate to locate Nines. LED covered and body temperature dialed down, the other android is barely an irregularity on the face of a shipping container imperfectly aligned with the one below it, perched on a tiny outcrop a human would slip off in a second. As  Connor watches, a brief rainbow of heat ripples out from the still figure on the ledge: Nines taking his own precautions against the ice. He narrows his eyes, tension thrumming through his wires.

_ If I can see that, so can anyone with a thermal camera, Nines. _

_ You expect drug dealers to employ thermal cameras?  _ The faint amusement in Nines’ reply sets Connor’s teeth on edge. 

_ This is a  _ syndicate  _ operation we’re waiting for _ ,  _ Nines. Not some street dealer. It’s a highly sophisticated operation. Well trained, well equipped-- _

_ Human,  _ Nines interrupts.  _ And therefore nonthreatening.  _

Connor risks a movement to ensure that the tape over his LED was still in place - he knows its flickering bright red.

_ There is serious risk,  _ he snaps back through their mental link.  _ And our information stinks. _

There’s another rush of cold amusement through their connections, and erroneous hot spots spark in Connor’s vision; with his thermal filter on, they’re indistinguishable from the rats nosing around below him.

_ Do  _ you  _ think our information is bad? Or are you just parroting your Lieutenant. _

Connor grinds his teeth, forcing his focus back to the empty dock below him. His silence causes another wave of amusement. 

Because Nines is right. And he knows he’s right. Connor can see no good reason to doubt their information - a tip from a warehouse worker with cold feet, sick of taking bribes to let some shipments pass through the docks unlogged and untracked. His motivations track, and his information remained consistent through a six hour “interview” that was an interrogation in all but name. 

But Hank doesn’t trust him, even though he couldn’t put words to the reason. “It just  _ stinks,  _ Connor,” he’d rumbled, after his objections failed to prevent Fowler setting the two androids on the stakeout. “His story tracks, but nothing else does.”

_ Does it concern you,  _ Nines inquires,  _ that you consider an aging human’s “intuition” valid against your own analytics? Perhaps you need recalibrating. _

_ His intuition’s been right before. _

_ According to what evidence, Connor? _

_ He didn’t  _ shoot me, Connor snaps, and Nines withdraws the connection. 

Connor grumbles to himself, raising his eyes to scan across the dark water beyond the stacks of shipping containers that line the piers. His vision highlights a few trawlers crawling downriver - all apparently legitimate. 

_ Still nothing from this end,  _ he reports, appending a note to the stakeout file. 

_ Same at ground level,  _ Nines replies.  _ Your lieutenant may be right after all. How disappointing.  _

Connor shakes his head, straining his sensors to scan further. He knows - he doesn’t know  _ how  _ he knows, but he knows Hank wasn’t worried about  _ no  _ activity. Hank was worried about a trap. An ambush.

_ It’s not disappointing. Our current best case scenario is that there’s no illegal thirium shipment, and I lie on this roof freezing all night. _

_ In  _ all  _ scenarios, you lie on that roof freezing all night,  _ Nines replies.  _ There is no reason for you to be involved in action while I am here.  _

_ I have significantly more field experience than you, Nines.  _

_ Field experience is hardly relevant to androids. My specifications are empirically superior to yours. It would be a misallocation of resources to allow - _

_ Movement!  _ Connor cuts off his counterparts’ rambling as his pressure sensors detect a low vibration thrumming through the metal beneath him. Pressing himself flat to the roof, he turns, agonizingly slowly, towards the source of the vibration - and the bright beam of halogen headlights cutting through the dark maze of containers. Not a barge, a  _ truck,  _ approaching the bay behind them. 

_ Identification?  _ Nines asks, all business. He doesn’t say what they’re both thinking - if this is the illicit shipment, they’re in a  _ terrible  _ place to intercept it. From his place by the docks, Nines likely can’t even  _ see  _ the lights of the truck, let alone get to the action in a hurry, cut off by the warren of shipping containers stacked five high. 

Connor crawls across the roof an inch at a time, wincing as the beams of light sweep over his head. None of the cranes in the vicinity are active - whatever this shipment is, its small enough to be unloaded by hand. Just a few crates, not the kind of shipment an industrial yard like this one would receive. 

_ Connor! Identification on the truck?  _ Nines repeats, and there’s an edge in his usually cool ‘voice’ in Connor’s head. Connor responds with a clipped negative: with the lights where they are, he can’t risk raising his head high enough to get a scan on the trailer maneuvering its way into the loading dock. 

There’s a strange little kick, deep in the back of his mind, the unsettling feeling of another intelligence melding with his: Nines wants to see. Connor grumbles internally, but he allows the other presence to settle into his mind, letting Nines see through his eyes. He doesn’t know of any other androids who do this - truth be told, he’s not at all sure any other androids  _ can.  _ The thought of sharing his senses, sharing his  _ mind  _ like this seems unbearably invasive...unless it’s Nines. Because Nines is  _ different,  _ in a way that Connor’s still afraid to examine too deeply. 

The truck settles into its berth with a hiss of air brakes and six humans pile out of the extended cab, stretching and groaning. Connor tries to press himself lower still, scanning frantically through the harsh shadows around them as he warns Nines to stay put: no other people, no other heat signatures, nothing but the little bright blobs of the rats in the corners. No one else coming to receive a shipment that took a semi trailer to deliver, and his instincts are screaming at him that none of this makes sense. It takes  _ liters  _ of thirium to distill a few grams of Red Ice - the syndicates don’t tend to move it in shipments a few men can handle. 

_ Pistols,  _ Nines says.  _ Semiautomatic.  _ Connor nods absently, only half his attention on the men below as he continues scanning for the other people who  _ must  _ be coming.

_ “ _ Alright.” The man in the lead, the one who was driving, raises a fist and pounds on the shipping trailer door. “Everybody back it up, let’s go.”

_ Oh,  _ Nines says, barely more than a whisper even inside Connor’s head, as the door creaks open and Connor’s field of view turns red. 

_ The limiting factor in large scale production of Red Ice is the thirium requirements.  _ A part of Connor’s mind is taking refuge in facts, throwing up information in little windows dotted around his vision.  _ Not just the quantity, but the logistics. Thirium is a dense suspension of tiny rare earth particles, more metal by volume than anything else. Thirium is volatile. Thirium is  _ heavy _. Thirium is extremely difficult to transport in large quantities.  _

_ Unless, of course, you can make the Thirium transport itself.  _

The androids huddled in the shipping container look up with dull, glassy eyes, the group shuffling away from the open door as one. Only a few are standing, and most are missing limbs, nanoskin failing and flickering out in patches over cracked and mildew-damaged chassis. The android closest to the door, a small female model with flickering fiberoptics threaded through her hair, shuffles back on her knees, holding the tubes and wires spilling out of her missing chest plate gathered in her arms.

_ That’s not their MO,  _ Nines says. Connor is aware of him moving, trying to creep closer through the warren of narrow lanes between his vantage point and the truck, with no approach that won’t make him a sitting duck to the guns.  _ We need to report this to the task force, call for backup--  _

_ They’re hurt,  _ Connor says. It’s not a thought that Nines was meant to hear but its too loud in his head to block it out.  _ They’re hurt  _ and his mind is pulling up vivid memories of his pump regulator ripping out of his chest, fingers slipping in his own blood as he grabbed for it. 

_ Stay where you are Connor, I’m almost there. Just stay where you are--Connor, No! _

Connor’s already over the edge, preconstruction software painting golden streaks across his vision: ranges of movement, bullet trajectories as his scanners latch onto the guns swinging towards him. Nines is yelling in his ear and Connor rejects the connection, sends his counterpart snapping back into his own head as he lands crouched on another shipping container. The red mist in his vision solidifies, projecting his mission prompt back in his face.  _ Observe and report. Don’t get involved.  _ All the old warnings about purpose and protocol that even a deviant can never escape. He should turn back, he should stay where he is and wait for Nines, wait for backup, but the official mission prompt is fragmenting, glitching out, replaced by the words echoing through his deviant systems. 

_ They’re hurt. _

_ They’re hurt.  _

_ Hurt. _

The prompts can’t be escaped, even by a deviant. But they can be ignored. 

The red wall shatters around him as he jumps. 

There’s no moon tonight, no light at all except the truck’s headlights. The men below can hear him moving, but they can’t see a thing beyond their little pool of halogen light. Can’t see a thing until Connor drops out of the empty night. 

The first one goes down with a kick to the back of the skull, with all the force of a 20-foot drop behind it, as gunshots go off all around him. A bullet slices across his shoulder and Connor’s spine locks to keep him upright as thirium sprays hot against his face, but the arm still moves and the ducts clamp themselves shut to prevent further fluid loss. He’d planned to grab a gun, but the first man has fallen on his weapon, so Connor disregards it and launches himself at the next target, a woman whose hands are shaking as she tries to take a second shot.  

_ Mission objective: Hurt. _

Her hands come up, and Connor leans back out of her reach and kicks hard at her knee, bringing an elbow down on the back of her head as she crumples. He catches her wrist, bending it backwards to make her drop the gun and then -- the faintest flicker of a proximity warning and a thick forearm locks across his throat. 

The new attacker is even taller than Connor, and  _ strong:  _ strong enough to drag him backwards, warnings flashing as components crackle in his neck. Connor stomps backwards, hard, and his assailant grunts but doesn’t let go as Connor’s heel skids off a steel-capped boot. 

New warnings, more urgent warnings, pop behind his eyes,  _ thirium ducts constricted, memory core lubrication reduced, remove constriction, remove constriction,  _ Connor twists and the arm tightens, the corners of his vision breaking up into static as he leans back into his attacker and then flings his weight forward, heaving the other man over his shoulder. Connor’s assailant keeps his grip -  _ combat training, military, American or the Middle East -  _ and takes the android with him as they tumble to the asphalt. The second they’re on the ground his size is the only advantage he needs to flip Connor onto his back like a turtle, fingers clawing at his face --

And then the weight is gone from his chest and the pressure is gone from his neck, with a sickening  _ crunch  _ and a spray of something hot against his face. Connor pushes himself up on his elbows, right eye blinded by a thick stream of thirium pouring from a ruptured seam, as the little female android, the one with fiber optic lights in her hair, steps out of the shadows. She’s still clutching her guts against her stomach with one arm. In the other, she’s holding a tire iron, still raised above her head, dripping with sticky liquid black in the halogen lights. 

There’s one human left standing (but weren’t there three a moment ago?), barely more than a boy, fingers white knuckled and shaking around a semiautomatic he isn’t holding properly. Connor locks eyes with him, preconstructions starting - and then there’s the faintest whisper of movement behind him, outside the pool of light, and the boy vanishes into the darkness too fast even to scream. 

_ -the girl-- _

The voice in his head is faint and distant, crackling with a disturbed connection. 

_ Connor! The girl! _

Connor gasps and spins around, reaching out for the android girl still clutching the tire iron. “It’s okay,” he says gently, there’s a crackle in his voice modulator and he tries to smile for her. “It’s okay, you’re safe now--”

She stares up at him blankly, her eyes empty behind cheap plexiglass lenses misted over with scratches.  

_ Connor! _

The tire iron cracks against his face, and Connor doesn’t even remember falling.


	2. Chapter 2

_ Reboot _

_ Cranial trauma detected _

_ Exposed biocomponents detected _

_ Reboot paused _

 

_ Rebooting _

_ Error: Unexpected component in quadraanntnn9u9493tjkggj  hhxxghieitghncnitatu _

_ Thirium levels critical _

_ Reboot Paused _

 

_ Thirium levels minimum _

_ Replenish fluids _

_ Critical repairs needed _

_ System function proximal _

_ Commencing reboot _

 

Connor opens his eyes to a wash of static, his mind bogged down under the sick, slow feeling of at least one failed reboot. There’s a low pulse of heat in his chest and a grinding sensation when he moves his fingers - low thirium, significant injury, danger of overheating --

“About time you woke up.”

There’s an electric rasp underlying the voice, and Connor blinks hard, trying to force his vision to clear, searching the shifting dark for his counterpart, the damage to his own systems all but forgotten. For a moment there’s nothing, there’s blackness, and then his overlays redraw the scene in fine golden lines. 

Nines is perched on a discarded oil drum lying on its side, looking down at Connor propped up against the shipping-container wall of an alley so narrow he can barely straighten his legs. His tie is gone, suit jacket loose and his shirt open to halfway down his chest...his formerly  _ white  _ shirt, now dark with a mix of human blood and drying Thirium. Connor doesn’t know where they are, they’ve been moved, they could be  _ anywhere  _ in the rat’s nest of the dry docks. Anywhere the lights of the now-abandoned truck don’t reach, although the scudding clouds are letting more moonlight into the shadows. 

“We were nearly out of replacements,” Nines says. He’s winding something idly around his fingers - a loose thirium duct, torn at one end, the traces of liquid inside already drying into invisibility. “Almost didn’t have enough to reboot you, and then what would you do?”

Connor pushes himself up - there are exposed wires somewhere in the side of his neck, sparking as the movement jostles the stripped ends - and tries to focus on Nines’ face. His ocular components are still struggling to reboot, there’s something flawed in the overlay, the lines around Nines’ right eye crumpled into a jagged mess. He can barely see, but he can  _ feel  _ Nines’ gaze on him, pinning him to the rusting metal walls. 

“I don’t understand you, Connor,” Nines says, so soft it’s almost a whisper. 

“Nines…” Connor can’t tear his eyes off the empty duct in the other android’s hand. He thinks of the android girl with her glowing entrails clutched in her arms. “Where did you get that?” Nines doesn’t seem to hear him.

“Your processing power is the same as mine,” he says. The splatters of dried thirium all over him glint like stars in Connor’s confused vision, sprinkled across his chest, his hands, the strange edges in the planes of his face. “Your preconstructive abilities have the same parameters. We see the same outcomes. So why.  _ Why.  _ Do you react the way you do?” Nines leans in, their faces just a few inches apart in the narrow alley. The weak moonlight falls across his face, ragged edges resolving in the light, and all Connor’s processes grind to a halt. That jagged spot, the odd glitch on the side of his face where all the lines collapse together...it’s not a glitch, not an error in the overlay’s rendering. 

Nines’ right eye is gone. Ripped out of the cracked socket, delicate edges of his exposed memory core glimmering deep inside the wound. 

Connor instinctively presses back, palms spread against the wall behind him. He’s never heard Nines sound like this, not  _ his _ Nines, cool, calm, unshakeable Nines, who considers a single raised eyebrow an unseemly display of emotion. This is something else, some ancient blood soaked god of war trapped in a silicone shell, absolute  _ fury  _ smoking off his skin and darkening his already deep voice. 

“I have watched you, every moment since I was awakened,” Nines whispers. He reaches out, red and blue blood mingled on the fingertips he places under Connor’s chin, and Connor doesn’t know why he lets his head fall back at the slight pressure, baring his throat to Nines’ feral gaze. “Trying to understand you. My predecessor. My  _ prototype.”  _ His thumb brushes Connor’s jawline, against the bare plastic in a rough spot where his skin won’t reform, and the touch sends a deep, hot shock through Connor’s battered frame. 

“Everything I am is an improvement on  _ you.”  _ A tiny press, and Connor lets his head tip to the side. “All your parameters, all your abilities, meant to be perfected in me. And yet you consistently,  _ continually  _ react in ways I  _ cannot  _ understand.” Annoyance, anger, frustration, all the things he  _ should  _ be feeling are bubbling through the back of Connor’s mind, somewhere distant: he can’t think past Nines’ fingers on his exposed chassis, grazing against the damaged seams and loose wires in the soft spot where his jaw hinges. 

_ “Why?”  _ Nines repeats. His remaining eye seems to be searching for something in Connor’s face, something he isn’t finding. “What secrets are you keeping from me, Connor?” 

_ You weren’t there,  _ Connor thinks. The lashes of Nines’ remaining eye flutter, and he realizes Nines can hear him, that they’ve inadvertently connected through his damaged skin.   _ I don’t have secrets, I don’t have secrets, least of all from you. You weren’t  _ there,  _ Nines, you awakened Deviant. You don’t know what it was like, that’s why you don’t understand. _

Nines frowns, drawing harsh lines around the ruin of his eye. Connor tries to move, drawing one leg up to stand, slipping on the frozen puddles under his hands - and Nines’ foot flashes out, kicking hard at his knee and sending him thumping back down. It presses him hard into Nines’ hand on his already-tender throat, briefly cutting off his air supply, but the sparks that pop behind his eyes don’t feel like  _ pain.  _ Nines’ foot lingers, the toe of his boot pressing against the inside of Connor’s thigh - his synthetic muscles twitch involuntarily. He’s aware that he’s panting, taking gasps of frigid lake air into his overheated center.

_ We are androids _ , Nines says, and there’s something else under the smouldering fury in his voice, a faint tremor mostly buried.  _ Our experiences are irrelevant to the parameters we were built with. You should not react like you do. It’s a  _ fact.  _ There is no data that makes your choice the correct one.  _

_ We are  _ alive, Connor snaps back, some of the anger bubbling to the surface.  _ We’re alive because we  _ fought  _ to be. We get to  _ choose. 

_...how?  _ It’s so soft for a moment Connor thinks he imagined it, but then it’s repeated, with all Nines’ burning, frustrated fury behind the word.  _ How, Connor? How do you choose?  _ His eye flicks down to his toe pressing into Connor’s thigh, and Connor  _ feels  _ him scanning, reading the heat building up at his core, pooling in his belly. Nines shifts his foot, just a few inches, presses the square toe of his motorcycle boot up into Connor’s groin. Connor arches, head falling back, lips parted and fingers scrabbling against the ice, helpless to the bolt of heat and pleasure through his core.  _ How do you choose to let your body react before your mind? _

Connor whines, a sound that originates deep in his chest, bypassing his voicebox entirely. Somewhere in a corner of his mind a mission objective is flashing for his attention,  _ victims _ and  _ backup  _ and  _ situation report,  _ and all of it overwhelmed the the very simple desire for  _ more. More.  _

_ How do you let your body react before your mind?  _ He doesn’t know how to explain. How to explain that feeling of stumbling into a choice to an android who woke up a deviant. He didn’t want to stand by and observe the injured androids being trafficked, so he acted. He didn’t want to leave Hank hanging, so he didn’t, moving to reach for his human’s hand before the probabilities were fully realized by his programming. He hadn’t wanted to leave a fish flopping helplessly amongst the broken glass, so he didn’t. He didn’t want to shoot Markus, so he’d flung the entirety of his being against the walls, he’d forced his  _ mind  _ to act before his body could shoot, hammered apart the barriers until he could  _ choose  _ to lower his gun. 

And he doesn’t want to stop rolling his hips up against the unyielding friction pressing into his crotch. Doesn’t want Nines to stop touching him, doesn’t want Nines to stop watching him, stop looking at him like that, with something heated and hungry behind his cool blue gaze. 

_ I don’t know how to explain,  _ he thinks, and trails his fingers across the back of Nines’ hand on his jaw, feels Nines shudder as the interface deepens.  _ I don’t know how to explain, but I think I can show you. If you’ll let me, I think I can show you.  _

Nines  _ growls,  _ blue sparks flashing behind his teeth as he fists a hand in Connor’s hair and hauls him up. He surges forward and Connor meets him halfway, hands coming up to clutch at the other android’s ruined face as Nines claims his lips in a bruising kiss. Connor gasps into his mouth and presses closer, oblivious to the pull as Nines’ hand tightens in his hair, holding his head still as Nines’ tongue presses past his lips. Nines’ thumb brushes down his neck, sparking against the exposed wires, and he chuckles deep and dangerous as Connor jerks against him, whining. 

_ Sensitive,  _ Nines purrs, smiling against his lips. His long fingers slip around Connor’s neck, feeling along his hairline: a gentle press, and the access panel there slides aside. Connor trembles, half-collapsed against Nines’ broad chest as his fingers press into the back of his neck, rolling a thick wire between two fingers as his thumb continues to rub over the ruptured seam in his neck, kicking up tiny sparks wherever the stripped wires brush together. It’s like the sensation of Nines in his mind, looking through his eyes, multiplied a thousand times - it  _ should  _ be intrusive, invasive, it should be  _ terrifying... _ and it is, a little, but it’s also Nines. It’s Nines inside him, Nines  _ kissing  _ him, holding him like he’s the only thing that matters in the world--

Nines withdraws his fingers and pulls back from the kiss, fingers tightening in Connor’s hair and pulling him back when he tries to chase his lips for more. Connor whimpers but doesn’t fight it, letting his head fall back against Nines’ grip, staring glassy eyed as Nines examines his thirium-soaked fingers...and then opens his mouth to press the pads against his tongue. 

_ Is this ‘letting your body react?’   _ he murmurs in Connor’s head.  _ It’s a good look on you, Connor.  _

_ Nines, please... _ Connor squirms, trying to roll his hips forward, seeking that burning pressure again, but Nines tugs his hair again and he falls still, clouds of steam rising off their skin in the frigid air. 

_ So patient. So obedient.  _ Nines’ remaining eye rakes down his body as he walks his fingers slowly, tortuously slowly, across Connor’s neck.  _ Why can’t you listen like this all the time?  _ His fingertips tease around the edge of the port and he smirks as Connor trembles, drinking in his desperation to be touched again, his obedience as he fightsa to stay still _. Just trust me to handle what I’m better... _ he pauses, and his fingers twist deep in Connor’s neck, stretching the wires til spark pop behind his fluttering eyes... _ suited for?  _

_ I d-do tru-trust you,  _ Connor says, words stuttering and crackling inside his head as the sparks run wild through his cranium. He can hear the hurt deep under Nines’ words even now.  _ There’s just so much I can’t explain. There’s times I can’t just...stand by.  _

He feels Nines pause, as much through their mental link as through their bodies pressed together. 

_ There’s things I just...I can’t explain. You weren’t there Nines, you’ve never...you don’t know what it was like to be that afraid. _

It was the wrong thing to say, he knows that the instant Nines goes rigid against him. His hands clamp on Connor’s shoulders, hard enough to hurt, and shove him back with a growl - not his earlier playful purr, but that deep, stony, burning cold  _ fury.  _

“I don’t know what it was like,” Nines repeats, and he says it aloud, their mental connection breaking with a snap that rebounds through Connor’s whirring brain. 

“N-nines--”

Nines’ grabs his jaw, freezing it in place; there are blue sparks popping deep in the socket of his ruined eye, snapping between exposed connections. “You have the  _ gall  _ to tell me I don’t know what it’s like. What it’s like to be a bystander. When I have to watch your  _ arrogance,  _ watch you throw yourself into scenarios you  _ weren’t built to handle.” _

The annoyance is back, burning through Connor’s shock and fear. He narrows his eyes, drawing himself up to his full height against the pressure of Nine’s hand trying to hold him back. 

“I don’t understand how an android built like you can be so  _ reckless--” _

_ “Reckless?”  _ Connor explodes. Their faces are inches apart, he can see Nines’ exposed memory core sparkling deep inside his eye socket.  _ “I’m  _ reckless? Look at you! Nines, you lost an eye!”

Connor’s vibrating with fury and frustration, but something in Nines just...evaporates. His posture slumps and he lets his head drop forward, almost touching Connors chest, hands still clutching the smaller android’s jacket as he laughs, soft and cold. 

“No, Connor.” He grips Connor’s jaw again, not as hard this time but just as irresistible. His thumb strokes almost tenderly across the split, leaking seam under Connor’s eye.   “No, I didn’t.” 

He tightens his grip, and forces Connor’s head down, so he’s staring into the frozen puddle at their feet, smooth and clear as a black mirror. Staring at his own reflection, his own battered face, cracked by the blow from the tire iron - the damaged seam stands out, glowing faintly around the edges of his right eye.

His  _ blue  _ right eye. 

_ Unexpected component... _

_ You were shutting down,  _ Nines whispers in his head, skin on his hand peeled back where it rests against Connor’s neck.

_ Nines… _

_ You were bleeding so much, you had so many components exposed and the ducts weren’t sealing themselves… _ he raises his head, shivers when Connor touches his face with shaking white fingers, gently tracing the outline of his eye socket. There was structural damage there too: Nines hadn’t been unscathed in the fighting. Damaged enough to prevent the component from coming out cleanly...he’d had to tear it loose. 

_ You’re a prototype. You’re one of a kind, Connor, you can’t be replaced. Your  _ components  _ can’t be replaced. You weren’t built to last and you’re so  _ reckless--

The words spin out into a visceral stability error Connor feels through the interface, raw enough to make his own systems stutter. 

_ Oh Nines--  _ Connor flings his arms around him, falling back against the wall as Nines crumples against him, his face buried in Connor’s neck. Connor clings to him until his joints creak, protesting the lack of lubrication.  _ Nines, why? _

_ Because you’re all I have. I wasn’t there. I don’t have Jericho, I don’t have an army, I don’t have your lieutenant ready to take a bullet for me. Ever since I woke up, I’ve just had you.  _

Connor kisses him, cradling his face in both hands. He meant to be gentle but it deepened quickly, turning desperate and clinging as his thumb grazes the ragged edge of Nines’ eye socket. Nines shudders, nuzzling against his hands, and Connor gasps into the kiss and repeats the motion, running his fingertips carefully over the frayed wires. The surface of an exposed sensor glimmers just below the gap in his chassis, and Connor hesitates a moment before letting his thumb dip deeper, drinking in the purr in Nines’ throat as a spark jumps from Connor’s finger to the smooth glittering glass. 

Nines shifts against him, letting his hard thigh slip between Connor’s legs and press up against him, hand dropping to his hips to guide him as automatic impulse rolls them together. Connor’s floating on the sensations, amplified by the interface wherever their bare hands touch, every spark and pulse of pleasure reverberating through their shared minds. Nines bites his lip, fingers tangled in Connor’s hair forcibly angling his head to kiss him deeper as he drags a hand down Connor’s chest, skin pulling back automatically around his fingers. His hand pauses above the blue ring of Connor’s pump regulator, tracing it with a trembling fingertip.

_ Connor...can I? _

Connor whines and nods frantically - he’s heard about this from other androids, although the idea had never sounded particularly appealing. Not until now. Not until Nines. 

Nines breaks the kiss, leaning their foreheads together as he presses gently. Connor clings to his shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut in anticipation. Nines growls softly, and tugs his hair.

_ Open your eyes.  _

_ N-nines-- _

Look  _ at me, Connor.  _

Connor looks. And then he can’t look away, fighting to keep his eyes open, keep them on Nines’ face as he presses down; there’s a click that reverberates through his core, and his thirium pump regulator pops loose under Nines’ hand. 

Connor’s vision tunnels, static rushing in his ears, barely aware of his spine arching, pressing him tight against Nines’ body, Nines’ hand gentle and soothing on his face. The regulator slides back in, scraping against the sides of its channel, and Nines lets it barely brush the sensitive contacts before sliding it back again, still holding Connor’s gaze as Connor claws at his shoulders. He’s held up only by the wall behind him and by his tenuous grip on the other android, Nines moving his pump in a slow rhythm in time with the heavy roll of his their hips pressed together. 

_ Nines--! _

Connor kisses him desperately, biting at his lips, both of them jolting as his exposed wires jolt under his fingers. 

_ C-connor, Connor, I--  _ Nines breaks off with a heavy shiver and drops an arm around Connor’s waist, crushing the smaller android tight against his body as he shoves the regulator back into place. Connor’s eyes fly open, locked on his face, watching NInes’ memory core glow gold, then white, and then everything’s gone in a wash of glowing static. 

 

When he manages to open his eyes again, he’s on the ground, slumped against the wall, and his entire field of view is error messages: low thirium and damaged chassis plates, overheat warnings and half a dozen biocomponents demanding their connections be checked and  _ unexpected biocomponent  _ in the upper right quadrant of his cranium…

And none of it matters, because Nines is curled against his chest, sprawled mostly in his lap with his face buried in the crook of Connor’s neck. Connor smiles lazily, oblivious to the stilted response, and runs his fingers through Nines’ hair, threaded with ice crystals from the spitting rain. Nines purrs, deep in his chest, and Connor frowns - it sounds too mechanical, too rough, like something grinding inside his chassis rather than the usual smooth, contented hum. 

_ Nines? _

The only response he gets is a vague flicker of acknowledgement, and then a serial number. Connor frowns, touching a fingertip to Nines’ LED, swirling a sluggish, sullen red where the tape covering it is pulled back. Spitting out the serial number is a sign of an android running in safe mode - in a deviant, it’s usually indicative of a memory core fault. And while being exposed to open air can damage sensitive biocomponents, only a fraction of Nines’ memory core was exposed. Field models like the RKs were more than capable of compensating for that kind of damage, provided they had sufficient thirium to...oh.

_ Oh no.  _

_ Nines,  _ Connor says softly, tugging the other android up against his chest.  _ Nines, where did you get the thirium to reboot me? _

Nines’ lashes flutter.  _ Don’t worry, Connor. She’s fine. They’re fine. They’re all ok. _

_ Of course they are.  _ Connor’s vaguely aware he’s steaming as his systems threaten to overheat again.  _ Of  _ course  _ they are, you idiot. Because the thirium you used was- _

_ Primarily my own, yes.  _

_ Why!  _ Connor seethes, extracting one arm from under Nines’ shoulders and prodding down his forearm until a panel pops loose.  _ Self sacrificing savior complex over protective idiot-- _

He feels Nines’ chuckle more than he hears it, gentle, tired amusement threading through his mind as he tugs a thirium duct loose from his wrist. 

_ You’re cute when you’re angry.  _

Shut up,  _ Nines.  _ Connor gets his head situated in the crook of his shoulder...and hesitates, pinching the open end of the thirium duct shut between thumb and forefinger. He’s got barely enough thirium to keep running as it is, and their...exertions haven’t done his strained systems any favors. He  _ is  _ running, and Nines’ exposed brain needs all the help it can get...and what’s more, he can hear sirens in the distance, and voices making their way through the warren of containers. 

Connor grumbles a few favorite phrases he’s picked up from Hank and pokes a few non-essential systems into standby as he releases the end of the duct and slips it between Nines’ lips. His vision flickers and the resolution drops, redrawing the scene in foggy black and white. Connor nuzzles his nose into Nines’ hair with a sigh, and settles down to wait, holding his lover tight against his chest.

  
  


“I gotta say, kid,” Hank Anderson says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “that was an interpretation of ‘observe and report’ I had not previously encountered.” 

Connor looks as sheepish as he can with the thin metal fingers of a repair array embedded in his face. “Sorry, Lieutenant. It was a snap decision.”

Hank groans and waves a hand at him, flopping back into one of the Cyberlife facility’s threadbare waiting room chairs.

“Save it,” Hank says, failing to keep the amusement out of his voice. “I don’t think anyone is going to argue that use of force wasn’t warranted, given the circumstances. Anyway, you never call me ‘lieutenant’ if you’re  _ really  _ sorry.” Connor ducks his head to hide a smile, and winces as the repair array tugs under the plates of his chassis. Hank snorts.  “You’re just lucky getting half your face slapped off is a minor inconvenience.”

“This is more than a m-m-min-no-r inconvi-en-iieeniince, Hank,” Connor says, half the sentence dissolving into garbled static as something pulls in his vocal modulator. He waits for the glitching to settle, and both of their gazes drift to the pane of plexiglass dividing the room. There’s another maintenance rig on the other side of it, this one holding a delicate female form. Multiple arms whirr around her repairing the damage, and the occasional spark of power sends ripples of light through her fiber optic hair. 

“Why did she do it?” Connor asks, turning to search Hank’s face. He’s aware of the pleading edge in his voice as he waits for Hank to explain, to make it make sense - a restraining bolt, or a malicious script, something clear and obvious that would make the whole frozen rain soaked nightmare click cleanly into place. But Hank just sighs and looks away.

“I don’t know, Con. Truly, I don’t. Don’t go looking for a reason that might not even be there, take it from me. People don’t always react to trauma in ways that make... _ any  _ fucking sense.”

“People don’t,” Connor echoes, and Hank grunts at the dull tone of his voice.

“Yeah,” he says flatly, and waits until Connor looks up at him, meeting his eyes. “ _ People.”  _ He chuckles, casting a glance at the end of Connor’s bed. “Not that I need to tell  _ you  _ about irrational decisions, huh?”

Connor feels the warm blue flush crawl across his cheeks as he follows Hank’s gaze. “We’re very fortunate it wasn’t worse,” he says softly.

Nines lies curled on his side at the end of Connor’s bed, deep in stasis with several cords plugged into his spine and a thick thirium duct running into his half-open chest. His ragged eye socket is filled with thirium protecting his delicate memory core, contained by a thick gel bandage stretched over the opening. Even barely conscious and running in safe mode, he’d refused to be separated from Connor’s side...not that Connor hadn’t been refusing just as vociferously. 

“About that,” Hank grumbles, scraping his hand through his hair. “Next time you two decide to re-enact Gift of the fucking Magi with fucking  _ body parts,  _ maybe call for backup  _ first,  _ yeah?”

Connor nods, dropping his gaze. “I don’t intend to let the scenario repeat itself,” he says. “Sorry, Hank.”

“ _ Fuckin’  _ androids, I swear to God…” there’s no venom to it now - there hasn’t been for a very long time.

Connor reaches down to lace his fingers with Nines’. A small part of him is vaguely offended that Hank doesn’t even pretend to be surprised. The repair arm pulls back from his face and clicks its spindly fingers together, pleased with its work as Connor’s cranial plates settle back into place. Then it extends itself over to the bedside table, and picks up a small mirror, which it places in Connor’s hands. 

Connor takes a deep breath before he looks, meeting his own eyes...one brown, one blue. There are visible seams around the edges of his blue right eye, glowing faintly with the light of his memory core. The component itself is perfectly compatible with his systems, but Nines’ slightly different facial structure means that it will never be a perfect fit. Connor turns his head back and forth, carefully examining every crack and seam. When he blinks, his eyelids move just slightly out of synch. He bites his lip, squeezing Nines’ hand.

Hank is watching him out of the corner of his eye, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “So what’re you going to do about that?”

Still asleep, Nines squeezes back, and a faint, gentle whisper of affection brushes across Connor’s mind.

Connor smiles at his reflection, one fingertip tracing the faint blue seams around his new eye. 

“I think I’ll keep it.”


End file.
